>> we're going to get you back and operating immediately. thank you, everybody, what a crowd, what a turnout. i will tell you this is historic. it's epic what happened. but you know what? it happened in texas, and texas can handle anything. >> good morning, and welcome to "a.m. joy." today trdonald trump will retur for a second visit to southeastern texas, where entire neighborhoods remain underwater. tens of thousands of residents are still in emergency shelters and rescue crews are still looking for survivors. you may recall the first visit was something of a bust. he went to a part of the state that wasn't flooded and held an impromptu rally where he bragged about the size of his crowd, touted the fema chief's level of tv fame and seemingly even marvelled at the magnitude of the storm. stopping just shy of congratulating himself and texas officials on doing a heck of a job. he also failed to mention to people who died in the storm,

that would be at least 41 people and that number might still rise, or the tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes. but maybe today's visit will be different. trump already tried to do something that hasn't seemed to come naturally to him, namely expressing some empathy. he pledged $1 million of his alleged multibillion-dollar fortune to harvey relief efforts. we heard pledges of charitable donations from trump in the past that nefrl materialized. trump offered a $5 million donation to charity in 2012 if president barack obama coughed up proof that he was born in the united states. his million-dollar pledge is also dwarfed by the efforts of celebrities like beyonce and j.j. watt who launched their own fund-raising campaigns with watt raising $16 million in counting. disasters can wind up being defining leadership moments for presidents or defining failures.

the question for trump whether he wants to change so far. gabe sherman, car reen jean pierre, david fromme, national republican consultant cadon dawson. president trump sort of treated his first trip as a tv show. what can we expect from him today in your estimation since he tends to see these things as showbiz? >> without question more of the same. this is a desperate effort by this white house to come up with a new storyline because the story that donald trump doesn't want the world focused on is the robert mueller investigation which we know from new reporting this week that is moving ahead at rapid-fire speed. he's teamed up with new york state attorney general eric schneid schneiderman. this is a perilous time for the president. having any visual optics where he's in texas is his effort to turn that corner. >> careen, the president's son,

eric trump was out with a tweet sort of you know going after the media in advance they're not going to tout the generosity of my dad that he's giving $1 million of his own money. here was sarah huckabee sanders talking about the million-dollar pledge we should say to hurricane harvey victims. take a listen. >> he's pledging $1 million of personal money to the fund and he's actually asked that i check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that are best and most effective in helping and providing aid and he'd love some suggestions from the folks here. >> careen, asking the press to tell them where to donate. sarah huckabee sanders would also not make clear that this money was going to come from donald trump's own personal fund. she seemed unable to verify whether this would come from his personal funds and david

fahrenhold "washington post" reporter report the funds cannot come from donald trump's foundation because it's under investigation by the state of new york. >> that's right. >> what do you make of the charitable donations angle here? >> you can't believe anything he has to say, joy, anything that comes out of trump's mouth, normally 99% of the time is a lie, and you made this point earlier back in 2011 he offered $5 million for a racist hoax but the gulf coast and texas and louisiana gets $1 million? so i mean look, this is a man who back in 2016 he skipped a debate and went to iowa to do a fund-raiser for veterans, and claimed to have raised $6 million and it wasn't until "the washington post" called him out on hey, what happened to the money that he actually gave money. before that he wasn't going to give a cent. so you can't really believe anything he has to say.

his foundation is under investigation. he's never kept any real promises when it comes to charity, and this is the person that we're dealing with. today is another photo-op. he treats everything like a realive tv show but let's be clear, harvey is really real. it's real for many people, millions of people who are suffering and people who have died. >> caton, people who like donald trump think that everything he does is fine, right. i wonder what people who are trump supporters make of the fact that one of the things that donald trump did when he went down the first time was to market hats, to sell the hat he was wearing, $45 a pop, i would them on the trump reelect website and it was promoted that trump fans can quote "buy the look." is that even too unseemly for trump supporters? >> i'm not sure they connect the dot between the storm and the hats. what i found is that people who

don't like donald trump don't like him and that's not going to change and the people that do like him filter out the messages they want to hear from donald trump. i have polling evidence that shows that, his base is fairly solid. he's in the mid to late 30s and as far as storms are concerned there are political pitfalls and political opportunities. my house was flooded in 2015. i rode by 22 houses on the way to the studio today that still are boarded up and hadn't been fixed. nobody blamed president obama on that not being fixed and i doubt trump didn't have the visual like george bush had of looking out over air force one and not going down and visiting the people. he doesn't have that optic yet and i think he's going back to make a statement of the support for the people of texas, and the politicians in texas, but it is horrific tragedy that's happened down there. people who like myself and other who have been affected by hurricanes and floods get that this is ten years in the making

down there of getting it fixed. i think donald trump will come and he'll go, and then there will be the argument much like there was in sandy of the funding, the appropriations, what's going to do with the insurance conditions. this is a really big tragedy, and donald trump's got to be very, very careful with his tone and messages today. >> i mean, careful, david fromme, doing it a second time. these kind of event can become defining, the response to hurricane katrina became defining for george w. bush and not in a good way. for donald trump to go a second time particularly after he's already sent his vice president to kind of do his act, right, to do what the president would normally do, this is mike pence and i believe this was on thursday in rockport, texas, take a listen. >> we are with you. the american people are with you. we are here today. we will be here tomorrow, and we will be here every day until

this city and this state and this region rebuild bigger and better than ever before. [ cheers and applause ] it's a long way to go. it's not months, but it's years. the challenges will be great, but we know that the generosity and the prayers and the faith of the people of texas and the american people will be greater still. >> you know, david fromme, there are a lot of people who are not fans of mike pence but that is sort of what you expect a president to say. it already been said by his vice president and as you sort of give us your thoughts i want to show the audience donald trump still has got the hat, he still has the hat for sale this morning as he's headed off to first force one, his hat's in his hand, you can see it there, one of his maga hats. what do you make of this whole optics of this, david? >> well, vice president pence tipped the cards a little bit to say something or to indicate something that professional politicians all know but that they don't usually talk about

with the cameras on, which is that the reconstruction from a disaster is a giant political opportunity. suddenly there are billions or tens of billions of federal dollars to be allocated usually by local politicians. the vice president said you build bigger and better. where there was a park there is now a park and a bike path. where there was a park and a bike path there are now bathrooms. every one of those things can be delivered by your local members of congress and state senators aand sem bleepeople. it is a dramatic political opportunity, one of the reasons why there's a tendency often to put political people at fema rather than disaster professionals. the disaster professionals are imdispensable when the disaster strikes but may not be sensitive to political need during the reconstruction, so whatever happens with these videos today, understand this is going to be a major political undertaking for the trump administration and the texas republican party to flow a lot of money into the state, and to shore up in advance of 2018 any parts of the texas political

universe that are looking weaker dodgy for the president. >> katon dawson, $14.5 billion already requested and the white house is call that a downpayment. we've seen the spectacle on cable news of a lot of republicans who thought hurricane sandy aid was a boo boonedoggle, it shouldn't be allocated without pay fors. what do you mean pay fors? we want the money. isn't david frum right? this is an opportunity for republicans to take all the money and use it for politics? >> i'm from south carolina that's had hurricane hugo, that tore up our state, floods. let me explain to you the money that's going to throw to houston and texas will be astronomical. the appropriation process and what happened at sandy and the ted cruz episode not voting to are that appropriations that's a whole nother conversation, but you got to watch it when you

have federal dollars that are going to be appropriated, watch the bad actors that are going to show up and try to attach amendments to it and get anything where even the wind blew close to their state to get appropriated money. that's the process we're watching in the next couple of months but right now i think it's all hands on deck, with mike pence, former governor rick perry who handled three of those type events, nikki haley is in the administration, so the president's got a lot of fresh advice on how to handle this politically, and the congress i give them a warning that they better be very responsible and careful along with the insurance companies that are going to start showing up and taking care of these people no matter who they are or where they live in texas, they need help. >> donald trump took some money after 9/11, he managed to gobble up some of the federal money as well so he has some personal experience with this. i imagine that the conservative media that is stumping for trump no matter what he does are also going to change their minds

about their feelings about federal allocations and are going to be using this opportunity to highlight republicans repairing texas. >> i think we'll see that and one thing i was struck by this week is that there was actually some pockets of resistance in the conservative media to trump's handling of the hurricane. we saw him tweet at fox and friends this week responding to laura ingram who said that part of the trump problem is trump has not filled the federal positions, there's left open vacancies in fema and other agencies and part of the response has been hobbled by this lack of staffing and we saw him respond to that. so i think it was striking to me that fox and friends, which is the de facto mouthpiece for this white house, even they were tis appointed in trump's handling of the crisis. >> karine, i wonder if it will scramble the ideology. the freedom caucus folks don't like spending money no matter what. i wonder if you see the beginnings of the rifts when it comes to the downpayment of $14.5 billion even though the

money is clearly needed. >> that's a really good point, joy. let let's not forget at cpac steve bannon laid out the ethos, the philosophy and the goal of the trump administration the deconstruction of administrative state. that's the goal that they were moving forward with. that's why donald trump presented a budget that slashed funding and programs from fema, from the department of homeland security, from sba, small business administration, which are going to be leading this effort, so this is not about just today a short term thing. this is a long-term process, and also the staffing that was just mentioned, thousands of positions have not been staffed in these agencies, these political positions that are really important, civil servants are doing a great job but you need the politicos in this position. you started off in the obama administration as a politico in the department of labor. you need those positions so it starts from the top, it starts from donald trump. it's not just a republican party. let's hope that they do not, the

republicans on the hill do not make this a political thing, like they did when president obama was asking for disaster relief fund, but it's also with donald trump he has not created a government that is going to take care of these people that truly need it. >> david t strikes me almost everything about the trump presidency and the fact you have republicans in full control of the federal government does create all of these sort of weird stress points for things that we believed about conservatism, whether or not conservatives believe the federal government is there to help, or in the ronald reagan parlance to hurt, whether or not these big appropriations are the right thing to do when people need help, even things like deregulation. you now have the arcama plant chemical sort of explosions into the air, and people aren't even allowed to know what's in the chemicals, what is in the toxic smoke. so are conservatives going to have a reckoning here or are people going to paper over it and spend the money because of the need? >> look, i think the lesson of

the trump era, and lesson of the trump campaign has been the conservative ideology, it's over. that was a different chapter of american history. it exists as kind of rusty weapons in the arsenal to be used when you need a weapon, but it's like the ideas of the whigs, like the ideas of social democrats, and there are no real social, no one who is in national state planning anymore and a lot of the conservative ideology that was so strong between 1975 and the early part of the 21st century it's really over. when there was an argument over the allocation of funds for hurricane sandy, people used conservative arguments, but what the argument was really about was did you want to put in advance of the 2014 elections a big chunk of disposable cash into the hands of the democratic party to use in the mouth of the hudson area so that was about turning off potential patronage funds for a democratic administration going into a republican congressional year and the argument about the hurricane in texas although we

couch in ideological terms it is about putting patronage money into the hands of a federal government a red state going into a tough republican year. >> spoken honestly and that's why we love having you on. thank you guys, appreciate it. >> thank you. up next, trump's connection with russia is coming into focus. stay with us.

i own nothing in russia. i have no loans in russia. i don't have any deals in russia. >> he doesn't but he really, really wanted to, because donald trump has been chasing his dream of seeing his name in giant golden letters on a building in

moscow for nearly three decades in the last russiagate revelation this is week we learned that trump's business was still trying to make that deal with russia for a trump tower in moscow happen at the same time that he was running for president of the united states. it could be the simplest explanation for why trump would collude with the russians and politics especially when you look back at just how long he's been trying to collaborate with them in business starting as early as 1987 when trump traveled to russia as part of what "the washington post" called a failed attempt to work with the soviet government to build a hotel. fast forward another decade, and he was still at it, visiting moscow again in 1996 in search of potential trump properties, and telling "the new yorker" we are actually looking at something in moscow right now, and it would be skyscrapers and hotels, not casinos. only quality stuff." alas, it remained a dream

deferred, but donald trump is no quitter especially when it comes to his pursuit of a business partnership with russia. so in 2005 trump gave the green light to felix satr the russian born real estate developer with ties to the mob to try, try again. one-year deal to build a moscow trump tower and found a location but still no deal. but trump remained undaunted claiming in a 2007 deposition when he brought an unsuccessful libel suit that a moscow deal was still on and would be done fairly soon. not soon enough as it turned out because it wasn't until 2013 that trump was back in moscow, this time for his miss universe pageant. he proclaimed on the twitters that trump tower moscow deal would rise again which brings us to this week in russiagate, and the news that in the fall of 2015, as trump was praising

putin on the campaign trail, satr and trump's personal attorney michael owe cohen were working to make his dreams come true. well "the washington post" is reporting in september of 2015 cohen was lead negotiator in discussions for an unidentified investor to build the moscow project, and license trump's name on the building. then in october 28, 2015, cohen says that trump signed a letter of intent with the moscow developer, and that the trump company began to solicit designs from architects and to discuss financing. emails obtained by the "new york times" show correspondence from satr to cohen in november of 2015, satr boasts of his ability to engineer a deal with russia that will help trump win the election. in one of emails he tells cohen "our boy can become president of the usa and we can engineer it." i will get all of putins's team

to buy in on in. i will manage this process." sater says in the email praise from putin about trump's business acumen would help hem to "own" this election and by december of 2015 trump and putin have publicly exchanged glowing compliments with one another, but just a month later, as trump inched closer to clinching the presidential nomination his dream of sealing the deal on a moscow hotel remained as remote as ever. "the washington post" is reporting by january of 2016 cohen was emailing the kremlin's general press inbox in the hopes of getting putin's personal spokesman to respond and to restart the stalled project. cohen wrote "as this project is too important, i am here by requesting your assistance, i respectfully request someone preferably you, contact me." that is where donald trump's 30-year pursuit of seeing his name in glowing letters on a moscow building came to an end. according to the "new york times" the project never secured

permits or financing and died just weeks after that email. sad. joining me is someone who is familiar with trump's time line of business failures, msnbc political contributor tim o'brien. thank you so much for being here. >> hi, joy. >> hey, tim. let's go back. i sort of walked through that time line basically to make the point that donald trump has wanted to build a moscow trump tower since the '80s. in your view, is all the flattery of putin, all the flattery of russia about business or about politics? >> i think it's about both, but with trump, it's always about him ultimately, and when he thinks about his own goals, i think those are always financial goals. i think the common thread you see in the recent trump forays into russia winds around felix sater who is sort of the forrest gump of trump's ties to moscow. he keeps reappearing. he's someone that has, is a

career criminal with organized crime ties. the president knew this. he's repeatedly denied in other forums he knew fee mix sater well or he knew any particulars about sater's background. that's not true. he's known for the better part of 15 years that sater has had questionable ties, and as abe wallach, a long time deputy to trump told me, you can get a deal with donald trump if you walk into his office and put a bag of cash on the des action. he doesn't care about doing due diligence. he cares where weather you have "good genes" we heard that one before, but at the end of the day if there's money on the table trump will do a deal and i think the dangerous thing for him in all of this is it establishes quid pro quos around these transactions that get to this issue of bribery, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, the issues that mueller will be

weighing that ultimately could go to the congress for itch peachment. >> the reason felix sater is important, not only did he have an office in trump tower as we reported many times before the mob ties but he and michael cohen then come up again when they attempt to sort of float this idea of an omnibus peace deal to fix the ukraine problem. describe that a little bit. >> that was earlier around february or so, the "new york times" broke that story. they said that a member of the ukrainian opposition sater and cohm wanted to visit with michael flynn in the white house with a proposal for peace in the ukraine and fee six sater who has no diplomatic experience and as we noted was a career criminal said he just wanted to make the world a better place. >> right. so would it be out of the realm of sort of credulity to say an accam's razor for russia january gate, donald trump got together with the same cronies he's been

dealing with since the '80s, people trying to do business for and with him in russia and decided if they could have closer ties between the united states and now russia, right, that donald trump could do more business there, and therefore they all thought they could make money just creating a sort of a political opportunity for donald trump, but then turns into business opportunities for everyone. >> no pun intended joy, that's the million-dollar question you ask, the accam's razor, the simple thing for everyone to think about, the explanation for why this is occurring is, does it line donald trump's wallet. that's how he thinks about many things. does he get praise or does he get money? it can explain a lot of his actions and that's what's at play here. >> and if you are robert mueller, in this whole cast of characters, all the people from roger stone, who has been trying to set up business opportunities or opportunities for donald trump to talk about russia since the '80s, paul man aare the to, roger stone's business partner, felix sater. who becomes the soft target for

mueller to flip? >> it begins with paul manafort, he's the weak antelope in the back of the pack, they move into people like michael cohm, possibly felix sater, keep going up the food chain ultimately to jared kushner who is vulnerable because of his own real estate transactions, and then to the president, and the money trail will be crucial here. >> tim o'brien, thank you very much. somebody who knows donald trump very well and has been to court with him. thank you very much. appreciate your time. for more check out tim's book "trump nation: the art of being the donald." coming up my panel weighs in on the latest trump russia development. stay with us. oh, you brought butch.

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tonight we have to track the latest developments in what we've been calling stupid watergate a scandal with the potential ram if i indications of watergate but where everyone involved is stupid and bad at everything. >> we feel your pain, john

oliver since we here have been covering every twist and turn of the russia scandal for more than a year. is the latest twist another example of the white house just being really, really, really, really, really bad at their job or is there something much worse? stay tuned.

you had already made the decision? >> i was going to fire regardless. when i decided to do it i said to myself, i said you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. >> "russia." on friday the "new york times" broke big news that may give us the clearest picture yet of donald trump's motives for the startling revelation he made to lester holt back in may. special counsel robert mueller has a draft of the original letter trump wrote firing comey which offers an unvarnished view of trump's motives. "the times" reports a dozen administration officials

confirmed that white house counsel don mcgahn opposed sending it because he "believed i its angry, meandering tone was problematic." joiningis nahira mack and navid jamali and malcolm nance and sarah kinsor. what i find fascinate being this story and politico has a more ex-tensive piece it seems what happened is donald trump goes tout to bedminster, supposed to be playing golf with jim norman whatever his name is, greg norman, and instead it rains, and so instead he sits inside watching "fox & friends" going crazy and stewing and winds up writing this with steven miller, darn it, why won't comey exonerate me? it seems the thing that triggered him he was made nauseous helping donald trump win. are we looking at donald trump having a breakdown i guess and

being angry not so much about the big picture of russiagate but because comey doesn't like him? >> this is so much of what he did in the campaign and what he's doing now is just to appeal to certain people and to get hearne people to like him. he did a massive speech a week ago and next day he decides he has to do a campaign style rally. that is constantly his motivation is the public adoration the crowds underlying all of this. add on top of that he wants certain people the strong men to also like him. so he has putin he wants to appeal to on a regular basis. putin and the russia banks directly connected to them have given the trump industries a ton of money in the past because throughout the course of the bankruptcies no american bank will give him money so we know all of that which comes in direct conflict with the role of the presidency. he's not able to separate president trump from the presidency, and the rest of the united states and what our

national security really needs. it all comes down to the personal motivation and how he feels in that moment. >> and navid i want to you look at this from russia's point of view. when you're looking at someone like donald trump who clearly cannot get past the fact that one guy, that the fbi director, a, was nauseous he got elected so it's all about his election and the sort of desperation to have people acknowledge the election and then the b part of it, that he won't protect him, that sessions won't protect him, that he wants to be protected. is that to you consciousness of donald trump's guilt he included with russia or is it something else? >> i think that from a lawyer standpoint he's the worst client but from a psychoanalyst standpoint the greatest client. he's the most transparent person there is. you think about intelligence the goal is manipulation and someone like trump is easily manipulated. we've heard he will do whatever the last person in the room said to him to do is what he will do. from a russian perspective they

would have looked at him and said this is someone manipulative but they ever concerned he is unmanageable. i feel russia is probably part of the process to recruit someone is suitability, and i think when they went through the suitability process, this guy is unmanageable and that's probably why they targeted kushner and flynn and manafort it was eas r easier. >> the broad is to wreak havoc on american democracy is russia's goal. they want to create a mess for americans. >> and sarah, he also has this authoritarian piece to his personali personality, demand that everyone around him be scrupulously loyal to him that the only thing that the maers is everyone affirm his election over and over again, tell him how great his election was over and over again, and protect him from whatever it is that's coming. i wonder if, i don't know, it speaks more of donald trump being just sort of a needy actor who is russia's sort of

convenient foil than being with it enough to concoct a conspiracy. am i wrong? >> i think it's a mix of both. i think he was with enough to be part of this conspiracy. i don't think he was else in saerl the person who organized it at all levels but i think he was aware of his actions and didn't find them to be immoral or unconstitutional in any way. you're absolutely right one of his essential traits is to demand loyalty oaths from everyone around him. he did this to comey and you know throughout his career, he did this to people who worked for them and also required hem to sign ndas because he was aware enough that he was doing things that he was committing wrongdoings that he wanted to make sure that information didn't get out. one other thing is you know trump saw the presidency in various forms for 30 years. he was involved with the gop and some of its most shady players including roger stone and paul manafort for 30 years.

the idea he's gotten swept up in all of this and also involved with russia with dealings financially and political for for years the idea he's in you to this is a myth. he certainly isn't some kind of mastermind but he's not innocent and unaware of what he was getting into either. >> yes. i am not suggesting in any sense that donald trump was innocent and unaware of it. it's more that i don't know, malcolm i want to come to you on this, it seems to sarah's point donald trump has been obsessed with doing business in russia, with currying favor with russian leaders since the '80s, since roger stone helped him put together this op-ed assailing the reagan administration for essentially being too hard on the then soviet union. he's had the singular on session which had to have made him attractive to the kremlin, as somebody that they would love to have in a position of power because he would want their interests. he'd have their interests at heart. >> yes. >> i don't know, you see that the walls are circling. you've got the irs now involved in terms of this investigation.

>> right. >> you've got mueller work with schneiderman in new york irk isling business advertise and mueller undercutting the use of the pardon power because he can say i don't care if you pardon them for federal crimes, they're still up for state crimes. it feels like the walls are closing in but closing in around his corrupt business practices. >> you're right, and i think a lot of people are looking at this too tactically. they're looking at it from the around june of last year with regards to the dnc hack, but the russians and certainly the mueller investigation are looking at it strategically, as you said, going back to 1987, what was his motivation for his "new york times" op-ed wanting to bring himself in as the great negotiator for nuclear missile treaties and trying to go to moscow and get a hotel and in '96. he did a brilliant summation of the processes that russian intelligence, the former

director of the kgb vladimir putin would be looking at this player, and then by 2013, we would say i'm going to have this guy in my pocket, even if he doesn't amount to anything. he's very influential in the united states, and then from that point on, he is being played like a marionette by vladimir putin and his cronies themselves. but you get to november of last year, and let me tell you something, if we didn't have a hurricane this week, that letter between felix sater and cohen would be considered the bridge between trump's own personal desires and the kremlin, throwing all of their effort behind him. we'd be talking impeachment this week. i think everyone is looking at it too short-sightedly and mueller is tearing his past life finances apart, because he needs to know were the russians manipulating him financially from the start. >> sarah, if you have somebody that the russians have been in

his pocket essentially since the late 1980s, rescued him from financial collapse, courting him to build hotels, this dance has been taking place for more than 30 years. >> yes. >> is it credible to think that with that level of contact with various people in russia for his business needs, for his need that donald trump couldn't, that there couldn't be something that russia has on him? doesn't that seem logical? >> of course they have a lot of information about him. they've been dealing with him for 30 years. he's been visiting there repeatedly. his children visited with felix sater, all of the side players that have been involved in the election campaign also were visiting russia, all of those people were being monitored and it's their job, it's pragmatic for players in the russian government who analyze these various influential figures in the united states, see what their utility is, see what their weaknesses are, as was mentioned before, trump puts his

weaknesses out on display, they know exactly what buttons to push and i think they know who to you make him useful in a political sense and in terms of strengthening russia, weakening america, and also in a financial sense, in terms of currying favor and allowing certain deals to go through with things like for example dropping sanctions, withdrawing from nato, collaborating on various financial initiatives, all that is beneficial to russia so of course they're going to be watching him closely. >> the same people that were trying to put together these business deals, the lawyer, michael cohen and felix sater turned around and presented a peace deal that would drop russian sanctions. we keep coming back to that idea of dropping sanctions and helping the trump sort of circle out in business. it's coming together let's just put it that way. nayyera, navid, malcolm and sarah, people have fresh ha haircuts and everybody is looking good, i like the beard situation, everybody looks good for our return to "a.m. joy." thank you guys. american dreamers a special look at trump's threat to kick out

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blue lives matter in america. [ cheers and applause ] the rule of law doesn't divide us. it binds us together in our great american life w shared behaviors, beliefs and manners. i call it as do many of you, american exceptionalism. >> prerogative law man david clarke resigned this week as milwaukee county sheriff capping a tumultuous year for the avid supporter of trump's law and order platform. according to politico, clarke may be tapped to join the trump

administration and says he'll discuss his plan for the future next week. joining me is president of the center for policing equity. and, philip, the idea of david clarke federalized scares me. your thoughts. >> well, it scares a lot of people. and i have to say the folks i've spoken to from law enforcement, you know, we work with law enforcement from all over the country, all over the world, it is -- it's not just scary, it's embarrassing. and it's frustrating as heck. >> the idea is that he would take a job where he wouldn't have to go through senate confirmation, because somebody who had five people die in their jail, one of whom died of dehydration, somebody who has spoken about black lives matter as if they are isis terrorists, somebody who is that sort of casual about the, you know, life and limb of the american people, the idea that he would be federalized, what kind of job could he even get? >> it's not entirely clear, but this administration is fine with making up new rules and new jobs. >> yeah. >> the concern though is the signaling that who has this

president embraced from the law enforcement community? over the last eight years the good folks in law enforcement who understand that cooperation with the law begins with trust in it and not fear of it have made tremendous gains that have gotten people behind them, they've gotten unions to make important concessions so folks are leading with effort to create trust and not fear. when the two people that you say are your friends from law enforcement are sheriff david clarke and sheriff joe arpaio. >> yeah. >> then you are signaling very, very clearly that you believe law enforcement should be instilling fear first. >> well, at the same time that you fire jim comey, who say what you want about jim comey, he gave one of the seminal speeches about trying to bring police and communities together, honesty about race and honesty about the policing and racial divide that i've heard in law enforcement. and so he's the guy trump can't stand, the guy who really is enforcing the law. and he likes people like david clarke and sheriff joe arpaio. what do you make of donald trump's sort of nods to lawlessness, if we want to call it that?

at the same time you have what happened in georgia. let's show quickly for those who haven't seen the dash cam video, this is a guy who got recently fired as a police officer in georgia. >> see video -- >> but you're not black. remember, we only kill black people, right? we only kill black people, right? have you seen any black people get killed? you have? >> so you had that happen. and then you have in utah a nurse refusing per the law doing her job refusing to hand over the blood of a patient to a police officer. this is what happened to her. >> we're done. we're done. you're under arrest. >> you can't put me under arrest. >> sir -- >> i'm not -- no. no. somebody help me. >> i said we're done! >> hey! >> stop! >> breathe. >> i've done nothing wrong! >> what kind of message does the commander in chief send to police officers like those? >> i think the unfortunate thing

we're seeing is when he makes jokes like, hey, when you put the hand on the back of their head to make sure they're not injured when taking them into custody, stop doing that. it's clear he's saying that's not the law enforcement we like. we like law enforcement that instills fear. when you do that, you make communities less safe. i cannot overstate how frustrating it is that jim comey, who among other things, was one of the first to say the fbi should begin collecting statistics. we should know what we're doing. he's the one who's out. arpaio and clarke who've said statistics make it too tough for us to do our jobs, we don't want to know. those are the folks who get support. when you have clear values that says trust first and accountability first and you say i want to resist them and put other people in power, you're saying the kind of stuff we just saw, that's the kind of law enforcement we want. >> yeah. unfortunately that is the kind of message donald trump and he seems to be exuberant about sending them. philip, thank you very much. always great to talk to you. up next, you will meet some of the people at risk if donald

trump destroying their american dream. we will have more "a.m. joy" coming up after this very short break. ♪ ♪ hi! leaving a career to follow a calling takes courage. a personalized financial strategy can give you confidence to take the next step. hi guys! aw yeah! see how access to j.p. morgan investment expertise can help you. chase. make more of what's yours. chase. can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. that's why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. so that you can spend time on what really matters. marie callender's. it's time to savor.

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bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty the quicker picker upper. what's your decision on daca, mr. president? a decision on daca? >> some time today or over the weekend we'll have a decision. >> should dreamers be worried? >> we love the dreamers. we love everybody. thank you very much. >> this has been yet another busy news week with harvey devastating the city of houston and multiple developments in the trump russia scandal. for the next hour i want to talk to you about the 800,000 americans who may soon be at risk of deportation, the dreamers, undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children under the age of 16, for many of whom

america is the only country they know. this tuesday donald trump is expected to announce whether he'll end the obama-era program allowing these dreamers to remain in the u.s. a program known as deferred action for childhood arrivals, or daca for short. well, candidate trump referred to daca as illegal amnesty on the campaign trail. once in the white house he promised to handle the issue with, quote, heart. well, now his hand is being forced by first ten and now nine republican attorneys general and one republican governor who are threatening to sue the administration if no action is taken to end daca by tuesday. and despite widespread popular support 64% approve of daca in the latest nbc news/survey monkey poll as well as calls from his own party and the business community to keep the program. donald trump may be on the verge of making one of the cruellest decisions of his administration. and joining me now is journalist and founder of define american,

jose antonio vargas. and maria, and chris president of vote america now. thank you all for being here. jose, i want to start with you first because this the idea of doing this hour started with a text that you sent me. >> yes. >> where we were texting back and forth, which even though i knew impiricily, the shock of doing it so suddenly when the 800,000 people gave their information to the government, they know where to find them, when it first donned on you this could happen, what were your thoughts as somebody who is undocumented yourself? >> one of my thoughts was thinking to myself these 800,000 people are integrated in all of o our communities across this country, right? they're in medical schools, some of them are police officers. did you hear about that story of someone in houston who's actually a daca person who helped with the relief effort in houston right now? >> yeah. >> so i thought of all those

stories of all those people and the fact that the stories, the real personal stories are getting lost in just a toxic politics of this. again, i think it's important to remember this, the government said to them come, give us your phone numbers, give us your addresses, give us -- pay us, i don't know if people know this, daca recipients have to pay about $500 to the government so that the government doesn't deport them for two years. they have to pay that again when they renew it. if you think about it 800,000 young people in this country collectively paid, what, $400 million so that the government doesn't deport them. >> yeah. and that's in addition to the taxes that they paid which they can't get back. >> exactly. >> so i want to put up just for our audience so you understand how you qualify for daca, because donald trump has made this sort of distinction, well, we only want to deport people who are, quote, criminals. you have to come to have u.s. before your 16th birthday, you have to be under the age of 31

as of june 15, 2012, you have to continuously reside in the u.s. since june 15, 2007. you have to be in school, have a diploma or a g.e.d. or be a veteran, meaning some are already in the military, note that, you have to have no felonies or significant demeanor convictions, deemed not a threat to national security or public safety. so if you look at just who these folks are, maria, median age is 25 years old, median age of arrival was 6 years old. 91.4% of them are employed. and of those 56% were not employed before daca. meaning they got jobs because of daca. >> so basically they're american kids, right? you know, i'm on the phone with and he's like -- oh, i get emotional because he's like what did i do, what did i do. i'm like, look, i'm an american citizen. why am i upset about this. and i can't believe i'm getting emotional. but it's because in fact these kids represent the best, right?

they represent the total best. and i think for them, you know, we have to realize it's like they're dealing with being flood victims. like right now. but it's going to be a flood that is going to be decided by a couple of men, let's say general kelly, jefferson beauregard sessions and donald j. trump. and the point is they're going to be suffering and the words everybody is using regarding harvey and houston and louisiana is resilience and love and compassion. it's like and you're going to make a decision that is basically going to shock these kids' lives and change everything for them because of politics. because frankly donald j. trump did say this, this was a campaign promise. >> he did. >> and you know what, there are a lot of people who are saying can you just deliver on one thing. >> yeah. >> and this may be it. >> and let's listen to him doing that. this is from my producer. this was on "meet the press"

back on august 16, 2015. and chuck asks him specifically about the executive order that he wants to rescind which was the dream act and talking about daca. let's take a listen. >> the executive order gets rescinded, one good thing about it -- >> you'll rescind that one too? >> one good thing -- >> you're going to rescind that daca? >> you have to. we have to make a whole new set of standards. >> you're going to split up families, deport children? >> no, no, we're going to keep families together. >> but you're going to kick them out. >> but they have to go. >> what if they have no place to go? >> we will work with them. they have to go. >> maria, stick with you for a second, keeping families together you'd have to deport the american born relatives. because if you're deporting the undocumented immigrant, that means if you keep the family together, that means you have to deport the american citizen family members. >> joy, i'm really upset that i got so upset because now i can see everybody, oh, you know, they get so upset, they're crying. so i'm upset that i got upset. but the point is that for young

people there are real mental health consequences that they're dealing with, right? they're like what did i do wrong. i followed everything and they're living in this limbo. and you know what i want to say to them, joy, actually, is, you know, they've got you, the daca recipients, you've got to find a way to, one, not give up. like you've got to find a way to totally know you're going to make it because you've already been raised with the most extraordinary challenges in your life. so you are going to feel sad. you're going to feel mourning. you're going to feel traumatized and you have to find ways to take care of yourself. i run, i workout, that's what i do. you've got to find a way to take care of yourself, but you also have to realize like if this country doesn't want you there are many who do. and so do not -- this is not a loss. and i know jose this is horrible. but i don't want our daca young people to be living in fear. >> yeah. >> because they are going to make it.

you have made it here. you will make it. and that's the kind of spirit that truly is an american spirit, right? it's truly an american spirit. we're going to do it however and that you're going to take with you no matter where you end up. by the way, don't give up, because they have all of their employers, all of their neighbors. what's going to happen now, right, is that daca, like white supremacy is out there. and everybody's talking about it. so, thank you, donald j. trump for making daca the thing now that everybody's talking about come out of the closet. maybe they will, i'm not saying do that, but this could be one of those moments. >> i'm glad you brought that up, maria, baa i think the question now, i've been rereading a letter from birmingham jail which gets me, martin luther king saying history will record in this period of social transition the greatest tragedy is not the appalling clamber of the bad people but the appalling silence of the good people. what that means all those teachers, all those mentors, all

those employers, all those co-workers, all those people that know that we're here because they've mentored us, right, are they speaking up? are they getting uncomfortable? what are they willing to risk? i think those are the questions. >> where are the rallies right now, right? >> i want to bring chris into this because you've had more than 1,800 people sign a letter supporting the dreamers. and that includes employers, you've had silicon valley come out. you've had business leaders come out. you had political leaders. you even had one of the original ten attorneys general the tennessee attorney general change their mind and say, you know what, he doesn't want to be a part of this group anymore. what do you say to these 800,000 young people, chris? how do you respond to what you've heard from jose and maria this morning? >> well, first i'll say this, i think illegal paths -- i think path to legal status is not the same path to citizenship. we have to be very cognizant. let's all for a minute if i

could get a word out, let's just say this. we all are compassionate obviously about children. we all are compassionate about americans and people in general. we are a nation of laws. and just want to be cognizant and want to be more cautious about how we bring people into our country. america is the best country in the world. it's a wonderful nation. and we want to be cognizant of how we do that. so no one is of course no one wants to break families apart. the president himself has said he does not want to hurt families. he wants to do something. and that's why he's taking his time this entire weekend, if not longer, to make this decision. he doesn't want to rush into a swift decision to say to everybody, hey, this is what it is. he wants to take his time generally and come up with a comfortable solution. i think as human beings have to look at this and say, okay, how can we work together to have effort that just makes more plausible sense for everyone. >> i'm not sure that a weekend is taking -- is a long time. but you're saying the president wants to have a compassionate solution, but what he has said

in point of fact on the campaign trail is his solution is deport people, is that people need to go. he said, quote, they need to go. they have to go. so i'm not sure how you square that with the idea of compassion if his solution is to remove people from the united states. >> well, of course certainly we're not going to remove millions of people. >> but if you end daca, then all 800,000 people are subject to deportation immediately. >> well, so i think what the president and, again, he can obviously speak for himself on tuesday, but what i think the president is saying is he's simply saying, look, let's come -- the buck has to stop somewhere. we have to draw the line in the sand at some point. so obviously up until now we're not going to just let hard working people who are 35, 32 years old, all different types of ages just say you got to go and that's it. but i do believe the line has to start somewhere. we have to draw the line at some point say, okay, what are the requirement and change the laws a little bit. >> but everything about daca is all about requirements. so that's why this is what this

position, the government has all the information about these young people. all of these, these daca, the government knows everything about them. >> right. >> so when you're saying fwheed to be understanding and clear about who's here, these are all young people who have not committed any crimes who are in school or in the army. so i'm not sure like how much more documentation, you want to take their blood? >> well, also, look, i mean, by metric samples -- >> they do -- >> let me ask you this question because i want to put back up and i don't know if you can see it on your screen, back up the qualifications for daca one more time. because you said there needs to be a system. but there already is a system. there's a requirement in terms of what years you have to be born, when you have had to have come into the country, you have to have a g.e.d. or high school diploma or be a veteran. they go through and look at your criminal background. you cannot have any felonies or significant demeanor convictions. they do a full background check to make sure they're not a threat to the country. so all that's already being

done. you want biometrics? you want also blood drawn? >> so here's also -- i have a very strong point i think we need to do. we need to encourage citizenship in america. >> but isn't that what daca is doing? >> no, no, it's not. the daca by no means is encouraging citizenship. and i choose my words very carefully when i say this. and i really want to be -- i don't want to rip my words apart but reality is this, let's take the welfare for an example -- not that i'm comparing the two, but for an example, we encourage in certain aspects of the system we encourage people to continue to stay on the program without any type of concrete assurance moving forward. >> wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. i'm sorry. you brought up the welfare system as a -- okay. that is not related to daca. >> right. >> i already went through and said 91.5% of these young people are employed, those who are not are students or children. and one of the things that changed is once daca happened

they could actually become employed. >> right. and that's phenomenal. but at the same time one in four americans is not employed. so why not encourage them to become citizens of america. >> huh? >> i just have to say by the way, chris -- >> when we do this, why have them have to worry about every two years having to get it renewed? >> so are you for pathway to citizenship in that case? that means you would like to see congress pass basically what ronald reagan did, granted amnesty for people in the country undocumented. so you think we should do that again, i think a lot of people would agree with you. >> i certainly think that, again -- >> do you agree with that? do you want to see blanket citizenship for the daca recipients? >> well, i wouldn't say blanket. i mean, if they meet the requirements and it's safe for america and makes sense overall, of course we want them to be citizens. that's just the reality of what it is. >> i just have to say, by the way, you know, i am an american, i'm just waiting for my own country to recognize it. i have to say too that in this country, as i'm sure chris knows

and joy knows and maria knows, in this country laws don't always equal justice. and i think to the young people watching especially if you have daca, you know that your life is more than pieces of papers. and you know that your life is more than laws that people don't even understand, even the president, right? i think it's really, really important that we remind ourselves, look, the president still has not made up his mind. we don't know what he's going to say, right? >> correct. >> maria, i'm so happy you brought up that point about making sure we remember the resilience of people, but if anything in many ways what defines america, which is a question i've been asking all across this country, is our resilience. i want people to remember that is what makes you the most american is the fact is the fight for that, the fact you have to fight for it and america is not something that just lands in your lap that is given to you. joy, i have to say by the way, we're near times square, can you imagine if we went to times square right now and asked people, hey, would you pay $500 so that the government doesn't deport you for the next two years so you can work? >> yeah. and, chris, i have to ask you this -- and i do thank you for coming on. it's not an easy thing to try to

defend. >> thank you. >> do you think it's ironic that donald trump had promised that he was going to do a press conference to discuss the process through which his own wife immigrated to this country? that for a while also was questioned. do you find ironic that being married to an immigrant and somebody for whom there had been questions about her immigration status when she first started working in the country, whether she was working legally in the country, do you find that ironic at all? >> look, i think the president is doing the best he can with the situations allowed. of course his wife certainly is an immigrant, but he wants to do what he can, obviously, to help people as much as he can. i mean, the reality with daca is this, i think no one can question the -- everybody's emp thetic and think we all could agree on that. some of these individuals are 30 years, obviously 32 years old, 35 years old, and i believe what we are simply saying is that

let's have a more secure path to citizenship. why even have them have to worry about every two years? even change every three that's not enough. why not have a more concrete direct way of saying -- >> i'm still not sure -- >> does chris support daca or not? >> i think he supports -- i think that would be a good note, we're going to put you down supporting comprehensive immigration reform. that's good news. we want to end on a good note. thank you very much. up next, you will meet some american dreamers. stay with us. what did we do before phones?

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and in may of this year i graduated with a bachelor's in mathematics. i now work for a bank in the fraud department and essentially i protect and monitor our citizens' money from being stolen through financial crimes. i do believe that my work ethic is an asset to this nation. and i just don't understand how removing daca's beneficial for anyone at all. you know, the term american should not be defined with a document or the lack of one. it is more so the willingness to contribute to the country and help others out whenever possible. and that is exactly what i and thousands of others are willing to do. >> well, the future of daca hangs by a thread, dreamers like giovanni have bravely come forward, humanizing the conversation with their stories. joining me now are three recipients of daca, co-founder of undocu black and carla perez, community leader for united we

dream. thank you all for being here. i'm really excited to talk to you guys because one of the things we wanted to do, and i'll start with you, jen, is to take people out of the mindset that the issue of daca is just about mexican migrants. because i think a lot of people have this stereotype that every single daca recipient came to the united states from mexico and that immigration is literally just a mexican and american problem. but it's much bigger than that. tell us your story. >> right. so my parents and i moved from south korea when i was 7. we came because my parents couldn't find jobs in korea and they knew the education system was more fair and just in the u.s. and i think it's really important to understand exactly what you said, immigration is a human issue. it's fundamentally about opportunity. it's about people coming to the u.s. to improve themselves and the lives that they have in the country. so i think that's something that donald trump has failed to do. that immigration is a much broader and a much more complicated issue than he seems to report in his rallies.

>> and immigration in general, you know, jonathan, is multicultural, right? it's from -- we get immigrants from all over the world. and the undocumented are no different. we do have some stats, i believe these might be from pugh poll. 92.6% recipients of daca are latino, but 3.5% are asian, pacific islander and 1.1% are black. you, your farmmily originally ce from panama. tell us your story. >> thank you for the invitation. i think for me personally and also us at undocublack is also immigration is a racial justice issue. blackness as well because over 565,000 black undocumented folks across the country, some have daca, some of us fall under other statuses like tps that are also under threat right now. >> and that's temporary

protected status protecting haitian migrants. >> haitians, somolians. i'm also a young black man living in the city of baltimore and there are particular nuances and consequences of that. >> can you talk about that? one is policing. how does it complicate interacting with police when you add blackness, which is already, you know, an issue, when it comes to policing, but also undocumented status? >> i think with daca right now is a perfect example. i know statistically i'm more likely to be picked up for anything, right? what does it mean to lose that protection that i have and i'm more likely to have an interaction with the police. >> yeah. and, carla, you know, obviously the other issue is that you have young people who are already paying into the system, contributing, not only paying to have the daca status, but also contributing to the economy. the previous stat by the way center for american progress. i want to make sure i give them their credit for that.

but according to define american you have $11.6 billion in annual state and local taxes being contributed by undocumented americans. you have $12 billion into the social security trust fund, which you guys do not get back, are not eligible for, are more likely to start businesses. you have all of the resources that daca recipients are putting in, what does it mean or how does it feel to know you can never get back any of that money? you're not going to get social security, you're not eligible for it. >> certainly. and i'm glad to be here. and an example really i'm in here today from houston, texas, and our city has been devastated by hurricane harvey. but i have seen how our community has come together to rebuild this city and that includes many immigrants in our community and many daca recipients like myself who right now are putting together their love for their community and for

their cities before themselves. >> and, karla, stay with you for a moment because i'm glad you made the point you're from houston. you've had members of the community who are undocumented who are helping with the, you know, recovery and trying to contribute in that way. but also can you talk a little bit about the fear people have that there are still checkpoints? so if you're trying to evacuate from houston and you're undocumented, what additional element of fear does that add? >> sadly there have been many reports in part of some of the efforts that we've been undergoing here to inform our community has been participating in phone banks, and i've spoken to individuals who are afraid to ask for help whether from law enforcement or to seek other resources because they are afraid. and although i have, you know, constantly told people that they shouldn't put their lives in danger and that we are all here for each other in this moment, unfortunately that does deter some people from seeking this

help. >> and, you know, gin, we know that according to migration policy institute, you know, undocumented asian americans are actually the fastest growing group of the undocumented population a growth rate of 202%, asian americans are the fastest growing immigrant group overall. but some of these communities are also insulated, right? not necessarily mainstreamed anyway. does that add an additional layer of fear for undocumented asians? >> yeah, so i think that's one of those things i think about a lot. in the asian american community among the recipients of deferred action is asian american community has been one of the smallest groups. so i think going forward it's important to note that even in 2012 when daca was first instated, it didn't just fall out of the sky, right? all of our communities we had to unite and unify. we had to fight for it. so going forward i think it's especially important in the asian american community that we join the fight and we ensure even if the decision comes on tuesday that the administration decides to rescind it that we're going to unite, we're going to

demonstrate the incredible mobilizing power that we have. >> yeah. and i think that's one of the most important things and i'm glad that the three of you are here and i hope one of the things that comes out of it is that these communities whether it is black, white, latino, asian american all realize we're all in this together. thank you so much. jonathan, jin and karla, thank you for being here. be sure to join the conversation using #americandreamers. we'll be right back.

the man who asked us to imagine a better, more peaceful world, may also have helped inspire the program that protects dreamers from deportation. in 1972 an english immigrant by the name of john lennon overstayed his tourist visa by

helping his wife with a custody battle over her daughter from a previous marriage. complicating the matter lennon's 1968 conviction in london for possession of cannabis resin. lennon's lawyer managed to get his visa extended, but only for a month. and an application for a green card was denied. as npr has noted, according to fbi files the nixon administration wanted the beatles front man out of the country because of his anti-war activism and influence over his young fans. but lennon's lawyer found evidence of a federal policy that allows immigration officials to hold off on some deportation cases for humanitarian or political reasons. lennon eventually got his green card after being classified as a non-priority case. and the previously secret policy which we now call prosecutorial discretion is now public record. an american president by the name of barack obama would use the john lennon precedent to

create daca. imagine. up next, dreamers coming to the rescue in texas. who are these people?

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our first responders have been doing absolutely heroic work to shepherd people out of harm's way and their courage and devotion has saved countless lives. they represent truly the very best of america. >> among the very best of america helping in houston are daca recipients, the dreamers whose legal status is in trump's hands. in harris county alone 68,000 young people are eligible for daca. the most of any county in texas. and second only to los angeles nationwide. several houston area dreamers who are working on the recovery effort delivered a message to trump directly on friday. >> i know president trump said he was going to be coming to the city of houston during his visit i asked him to spend at least 30

minutes with us, with daca recipients who have been volunteering and helping here in the city of houston, to come meet us and to -- so he can understand and remove the stereotype that is here. we're not here to cause any harm. we're here to help. that is all we want. >> joining me now, jose antonio vargas. thank you all. julietta, i know you're coming from a protest, can you tell us what that was all about? >> yeah, we did all night protest outside the governor's mansion office. i'm really exhausted. it was all night. but it was to send a very clear message. when governor abbott passes and signs a very racist and unconstitutional law and although we got a temporary halt by the judge garcia we also wanted to make it clear to a.g.

paxton who's putting a threat on the program that we want on our daca. we wanted to make it very clear when they try to terrorize us, criminalize us and deport us, we're actually going to take over his space. we're going to make it clear that immigrants are here to stay. that we're here to stay and to actually be part of the rebuilding of our beautiful state as harvey has hit us so hard. >> and for those viewers unaware of it what julieta is talking about, a federal judge blocked texas' ban on sanctuary cities, it was a bill called sb-4, a judge issued a preliminary injunction against part of that law that bans to aim sanctuary cities, houston was one of the cities that sued the state over it. also one of the state that's suing donald -- threatening to sue the federal government if daca is not taken away. put up the states, south carolina, kansas, louisiana, tennessee's dropped out of it, west virginia, nebraska, idaho,

arkansas, alabama. what do you make of the fact that texas, which has one of the largest daca populations is in the midst of what's going on with harvey and a part of this threat to sue over daca? >> thanks for the invitation, joy. and thank you and congratulations for this show with dreamers really at the front of this line. we're at a defining moment in this country, joy, where we're not operating even under a legal timeline. this is a completely manufactured timeline that paxton, the attorney general from texas, has decided in the most inhumane way to basically threaten the president along with now eight, not nine, state attorney generals because the tennessee attorney general courageously has pulled out. but attorney general paxton has basically threatened the trump administration with suing over daca despite the fact that the program has been in place for five years, it's been a successful program. this administration has allowed it to continue for the last seven months.

daca is completely constitutional, as you mentioned earlier, the legal precedent for this has been used by every administration since eisenhower, republican and democratic presidents have used this. and president trump is about to place 800,000 young immigrants like jonathan, like jin, like karla, like julieta, in harm's way. it's completely cruel and inhumane and going to call on all of us every second of society to stand up with immigrant youth and say, no, they are americans, they are part of us. we are all in this together. >> and one of the things and you were kind enough to do, jose antonio is you put together for us some stories of individual daca recipients who are under threat if this is rescinded. let's play joel. >> my name is joel sati. i am a second-year ph.d. student at the university of california berk berkeley. i came to the united states when i was 9 years old.

daca has been critical in my upward path to being a law professor. i see defining american as being able to question the very terms by which me and people like me are rendered illegal. i call on immigrant communities, both those who fit the dreamer narrative and those who don't, to come together and chart a new course forward. >> i feel like there will be a disconnect when people hear these daca recipients because they're just americans. >> i met joel a few years ago here in new york. he went to this immigration event and he said, jose, like, i need people to talk more about undocumented black immigrants. and i'm so happy by the way, joy, you and i when we have these conversations, right, this is not a purely latino or latina issue. >> exactly. >> thousands of undocumented, asian, black, white, thousands are under threat. we have to really realize the diversity of this entire population. i mean, you and i were talking about right now for example according to teach for america she was saying there's 10,000 students in 11 states who would

lose their teachers who have daca if this is implemented. >> yeah. >> you really have to wonder if the president goes through with this, who is this -- who is he doing this for? >> yeah. >> who's the base? >> it's a good point, because if you look at the polling, julieta, people overwhelmingly support keeping daca. the nbc poll shows 64%, so two-thirds of americans support it. at the same time in houston you have 575,000 daca recipients who are there embedded in the community. and while it is not specifically a latino or latina issue, it is the community who feels the most threatened by like i.c.e. border patrol put out a statement saying non-criminal immigration enforcement operations will not be conducted at evacuation centers but said laws will not be suspended and vigilant against any efforts

to -- >> yeah, it's been a really painful past month. talking to the community, a lot of them were saying we know september 1st is coming. what are we going to do? and so it's been kind of like traumatic to think of, okay, september 1st is coming, a lot of the work that united we dream has been doing is literally know your rights but how do you prepare yourself, how do we equip yourself to protect each other. >> yeah. >> and so it's been a tough couple of months. we were happy that judge garcia reiterated what we've been saying that this law is racist and it's unconstitutional. but there's still that fear, especially now with harvey when people are wondering do i go to a shelter or not. >> yeah. very quickly, what should people do? >> well, first and foremost, fight back, right? just as we're seeing. this past week the fact that we still have daca and every day that means new people are being approved, that is because young immigrants have said we are here to stay and we're going to fight

back. so we're calling on everyone, educators, health professionals, people of faith, elected officials, state, local level, anyone who cares about america, who cares about the dignity and justice of every single human being stand up with us. on tuesday president trump may or may not announce it, he may announce it before then, we don't know. stand with us. we at the national immigration law center are ready to sue if we need to, but we're also calling on congress. >> yeah. absolutely. jose will be back. thank you so much. and still ahead, some final thoughts on donald trump's decision and the 800,000 lives, really more than that when you count their families hanging in the balance, join the conversation a at #americandreamers during the show and share your immigration story at defineamerican.com. >> i work for amazon.com as an operations manager, i came to the united states back in 2002. in 2012 because of daca i'm able

to support my brothers, they're going to school full time so i'm able to help them with their tuition, help them pay for rent and their utilities and pay their car insurance and et cetera while doing all of that i'm also able to live my dreams freely. how do i define myself as an american is by being a hard worker and having the ambition to succeed and always wanting more and being able to help others out to succeed as well. when i walked through a snowstorm for a cigarette, that's when i knew i had to quit. for real this time.

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i was born in mexico. when i was 2 years old. my mom decided to move to the u.s. along with me and my older sister. daca has allowed me to continue to pursue my education and for my family to be able to afford to send me to college. daca has allowed me to contribute to my family's income and allowed me to travel outside my hometown without the fear of being deported. i define american as someone who values what this nation was founded on and works to improve not only themselves but the country adds a whole. >> another example of the real-life impact that daca has had on the lives of nearly a million dreamers and their families and what's at stake if donald trump decides to end the program. i'm joined by jose antonio vargas and maria. jose, you and i talk about this a lot, one of the reasons i relate to this story is my parents came here in 1961 from the african continent, from then

zaire and british guyana. i have no paperwork that tells me how they did that. i have no idea what their process was. all i know is i'm american, they came here, and we never questioned it. so i find it weird that people -- you know what i mean, that's how i define american. i'm here, i was born here. my mother came at some point was naturalized somehow. >> for me what's been stunning about a moment like this, you know, three journalists of color, which is a rarity that you see on cable news, by the way. >> two not born in this country. >> so i just have to say that so much of the political media and how they talk about this issue is lacking the kind of humanity and context and diversity that we're seeing here today. i really implore every journalist who's about to write about this, at define american.com/daca, every single fact you need to know about what daca is. please, print it out, share it with people. look at some of these facts, right? 95% of people are currently in

school, 63% got a better paying job. i was stunned by this. 12% bought their first home. >> so they're paying a mortgage. >> so what happens if they get deported? and this for me, 54% bought their first car. so all those automaker dealers all across this country and people who do car insurance work, can you get involved? don't you want us to buy cars and purchase car insurance? >> if somebody gets deported are they liable to still have to pay their car and mortgage? so banks that have a loan to those people, do they still get their money? >> this is not a smart business decision. the center for american progress, i put out some numbers, it's between 1,000 or 15,000 jobs lost every week. which is for the daca recipients who are working. you know, your employers want you. so this could be in fact this moment yet again where there's a confrontation between donald trump, the businessman, and the actual business people. >> even in houston there's already been a chilling effect

on the construction industry, which relies on immigrant labor and has to rebuild houston. >> and i have to really give credit where credit is due. mark zuckerberg has become one of the proponents not just of immigration but of daca. he posted something on facebook two days ago and started replying to people on facebook. why don't these kids get in line. so here is mark zuckerberg, probably the defining millenial ceo in the world telling them. the entrepreneur in donald trump, does he have any business sense at all? >> he has immigrant labor at mar-a-lago. >> we don't know what he's going to do. what we do know as immigrants and latinos is this is a president who ran against immigrants, ran against mexican immigrants in particular who just recently defended white supremacists, the kkk, nazi supporters, who pardoned joe arpaio who specifically was coming after latinos and brown

immigrants with accents. so whatever he does -- >> and who hired kris kobach. >> so sadly whatever he does, president donald trump has shown his true colors. so for the young people who are here, this is very confusiong, right? because he's saying i have heart but within his own words and his own actions, there's context here regardless of what he does already deeply problematic. >> let me ask you this question as we wrap up. is there a chance, you do have paul ryan in his mild paul ryan say saying this is a bad idea. could we get comprehensive immigration reform out of this mess? >> i don't see it, but then again, anything can happen. but no. again, the republicans can't have it both ways. they have been wanting to stop immigration, so here you go. >> the question really is president trump, how do you define american? that is the question. >> yep, that is the question. i want to thank jose, maria, the

entire cast that came here today and my crew for putting this together. greatest team ever. that is our show for today. thank you so much. join us tomorrow for more "a.m. joy" 10:00 a.m. eastern. in the meantime, keep it right here on msnbc. when i walked through a snowstorm for a cigarette, that's when i knew i had to quit. for real this time. that's why i'm using nicorette. only nicorette gum has patented dual-coated technology for great taste, plus intense craving relief. every great why needs a great how. ♪

can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. that's why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. so that you can spend time on what really matters. marie callender's. it's time to savor. good day, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. it is high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west and here's what's happening. the president and first lady a short time from now will touch down in texas. it is their second visit to the hurricane-ravaged state. we're going to take you there live as he's expected to visit with families. harvey aftermath. some new dangers today as the flooding recedes, including flash fires at a chemical plant. you're seeing it right here. leaving residents to wonder what's in the air and in the water. we've got a live report ahead. >> from one gas